Battle on a New Front
by MasterOfGrey
Summary: Kerrigan decides on a whim, that while she's sitting back and massing her forces quietly preparing and all that that it might be interesting to see if she could invade somewhere different using stealth instead of strength. Her choice - Earth.
1. Prologue

_Ok well all I have to say at this point is, enjoy._

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing, except the plot.**_

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**Battle on a New Front**

_**Prologue**_

_Deep within her hive clusters, at the most secret part of her hidden lair... Kerrigan waited… and smiled._

_Lightyears away, a single overlord, with a single drone, slipped past the final lines of defence around Earth._

_As far back as Jupiter it had emerged from the hyperspace opening, hidden in the planet's shadow. From there it had moved to the highest convenient speed and drifted, silent, motionless and asleep, towards the blue gem floating in the inner system. It had as much mass as the average insignificantly sized rock and gave off as much heat too. With that in mind it passed unhindered through networks of protection, security grids and orbital defences. Finally it entered the upper atmosphere of the earth. After only a few moments a drone, encased in a special landing pod, falls free of the Overlord, sailing towards the earth's surface._

_The drone pod slams into the ground with enough kinetic force to send up a small dust cloud and split the pod end to end, spilling the drone contained within onto the south-central African savannah. Immediately the injured drone burrows into the ground, controlled by Kerrigan from afar it is instructed to create a structure. A Hive, of new design, one which could remain entirely hidden underground for some time and later emerge as a fully functional Zerg structure._

_Only minutes later, the overlord passes over an area of restricted airspace, a secret facility of an African government. Primitive space superiority fighters intercept it and destroy it._

_The base is a secret, and so the incident is not reported._

_The hive structure continues to develop, capable of providing the control lost at the overlord's death upon its completion._

_And in the Koprulu sector, Kerrigan smiled… again._

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_Ok, so I held off on going real far with this as of yet. After all, it is just the prologue._

_Please R&R. I'm not sure how long it will be until I post another chapter or if I ever will but reviews will make me think about doing it a whole lot quicker so if you like it review! I don't even care what you say._


	2. Chapter 1

_Ok so here's chapter 2, thanks very much to bdun for reviewing. In answer to the question, the planes in the previous chapter were primitive because unfortunately Earth isn't as equal as its colonies and Africa is still poorer than the rest of us. Don't shoot me._

_One note, because this is set sometime between Brood War and StarCraft 2 most of the units will be from the Brood War Saga, with only the odd one or two that I really like from the new game.  
_

**_Disclaimer: I only own the plot... and Patrick... oh and that blue beetle car. That's it though._**

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**Battle on a New Front**

_**Chapter 1: The Enactment of a Plan**_

Patrick sat staring out the window of the desert transport vehicle, chin on his hand and elbow slowly sliding off the window ledge as the engine vibrations worked their way through his brain. He was on a family holiday to see safari. Thinking about it he smiled wryly, there wasn't even any real safari here anyways, most of it had been extinct for the better part of forty years. All they were going to see was some giant zoo which tried its best to pretend it was a safari.

The blue, beetle shaped vehicle raced along the desert roadway, a small plume of dust rising behind it. Ever so slowly the road began to curve, changing from due north to a more westerly direction.

Patrick flinched, sitting back away from the window as the harsh sun struck his pale skin. These were supposed to be desert vehicles but the polarisation on the windows really wasn't designed to accommodate sheltered kids from what used to be England.

He sighed.

"Oi wranger, what you sighing about?" (AN: Wranger is slang for a person with red hair.)

Patrick flinched, that was his dumbass brother. Ah well, not long now and he could ignore him. His bro was actually interested in the animals so Patrick would get a couple of hour's peace hanging around at the Café while the older nitwit went cavorting.

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_The defiler rose up quietly, its burnt orange-brown body blending perfectly with the scorching sand upon which it crawled. The blue vehicle approaching it was fast but perfect, and so it readied itself._

_When the vehicle was less than a hundred metres away its external flaps opened, its body flexed and thick brown smoke poured from its body into the air. A swarm of microscopic particles rising like a sudden cloud of dust to obscure the road._

_Bitumen raked, tyres squealed, the blue bug vanished into the cloud with an audible 'whoomph'._

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Patrick sat up straight, staring out the window as the driver swore and the car' brakes squealed. In the front seat his mother was panicking and his dad was yelling at the driver trying to find out what had happened. Almost without thinking he undid his seatbelt to lean forward and ask… this would save his life.

There was a wrenching sound, metal screeched and glass shattered. Patrick thought he saw something, a glimpse perhaps of a giant bug before the same brown dust from outside flooded the car.

His brother let out a yell, his mother's screaming was abruptly cut short.

In a sudden panic he turned, grabbed the door handle and pulled. It was a fluke beyond reckoning. The chances of finding and opening a car door when in a panic and blind are small enough that panicking is the leading cause of death in vehicle accidents and yet in a miracle moment it worked. With a thud Patrick tumbled out of the car, landing on the tarmac heavily and rolling onto his back.

Another scream was cut short and he began to crawl away. His breathing was ragged and it was several moments before he realised he was crying. Dirt, sand and miscellaneous brown gunk stained his face in the wetness and he stopped his crawling. Sitting at the bottom of a sand bowl he tried to wipe it off his face and only then realised that the shouts had stopped. He could still hear bumping as the thing moved around, trying to get back out of the car.

The cloud of brown stuff began to clear and he noticed a scraggly bush nearby, adding shade to a narrow slip between dunes. Hastily he scrabbled towards it, kicking up sand in his haste to find somewhere which offered a modicum of safety. There, he curled himself into a ball, hugging his knees, and wept quietly.

All the things they said about accidents and staying near the car went through his head. All the promising statistics he'd read about survivors being found after horrendous incidents ran through his mind.

None of it helped.

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_The defiler returned to the hive cluster, bloated with its prize… and again, Kerrigan smiled._

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_So yeah. I hope you like it. R&R please. I don't really care what you say but every person that reviews is another chapter that I feel motivated to write._


	3. Chapter 2

_So, I sorta walked away and left this story for... a long time. I don't even remember._

_However! I have like an hour journey on public transport every morning and afternoon of the week and I've figured I can write these on my laptop while I'm at it. So, now I'm back into it. _

_**Disclaimer: I only own Patrick and the story. Kerrigan, and anything else obviously specific to StarCraft does not belong to me. If it did I'd have been able to input to the StarCraft 2 storyline and I wouldn't be here.**  
_

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**Battle on a New Front**

_**Chapter 2: **__**What it takes to Survive**_

Patrick woke, and it was dark. Against the starlit sky the dark bulk of the mangled car rose like a shadow of death in his vision.

Dragging himself back to his feet he staggered over to the hulk, the smell of leaking oil, blood and a lingering odour from whatever cloud they had passed through combined to make him gag but there wasn't anything in his stomach anymore and ultimately all he achieved was to spit bile into the dirt.

With a sick sense he realised this was it, he was alone, at least until someone else came along the road and found him. He knew what you were supposed to do, he'd had it drilled into him before the trip a hundred times. He could still hear his mother saying, "Now remember, if anything happens just stay where you are, we'll find you."

Well they couldn't find him now could they? Of course someone else could but chances were they wouldn't speak English out here and even less likely it was that they would help him. Usually these things operated by returning you to your family, except now he had no family.

That realisation hit him all over again with how alone he was and he took several steps back from the dark wreckage of the car. He had no family, nowhere to go. He was only sixteen, and that didn't really count for much.

With this sick realisation deep inside him he suddenly felt the cold, he was interested in Geography, he knew deserts could drop to freezing at night but he couldn't think properly. This was all too much and his mind was blank apart from some vague need to get warm as he stumbled away from the car. Numbly he started walking back down the road the way they'd come, shoes slapping the bitumen but registering no feeling in his feet.

After a while the thought occurred to him that he didn't really want to find whoever he was likely to find on this road, he didn't want to go back, didn't want to have to see that wreckage again. He didn't want to go home and see the distant relatives squabble over stuff, drag him off to a home somewhere probably more intolerable than living with his brother had been.

Without even making a conscious decision he found himself back on the dirt, wandering off into the desert. So what if he died? What was he living for anyway?

After a while the sun came up and he felt warm, didn't take long for it to get hot though, yet somehow this helped, like it kicked his brain back into gear. After several minutes of searching he found a depression with some more scrubbly brush that he'd been seeing at irregular intervals and crawled in, weariness overtaking him.

_The defiler was out again, searching for something, job apparently incomplete. This time its orders were to collect, not destroy though. The scent was hard to find by the wreckage, too many conflicting smells, but eventually it found the trail, leading away._

_It was full daylight now and the over-sized bug's carapace sweltered under its orange-brown exterior. Its quarry didn't seem to like going in a straight line, every few metres or so the trail would change direction, drifting aimlessly across the desert, though as time went on it go fractionally closer to its lair, which was convenient._

_At length it found him, asleep. Unconcerned by his status, as its tiny mind was wont to be, it crawled into the depression where the target hid and picked up its limp form, binding it to its underside with sticky mucus threads. Vaguely the thing started to struggle but the mucus had a paralytic compound in it and before long the boy dropped back into unconsciousness._

_Not that the bug thought of him as "the boy" merely as "the food it couldn't eat". Scuttling more rapidly now over the desert soils it heads back to base._

Patrick awoke groggily, he had a vague recollection of being moved but couldn't remember well, and was in fact mostly surprised that he seemed to be on something the consistency of a mattress rather than desert soils.

Then he opened his eyes properly.

Just a couple of metres away was that bug thing, only he could see it better now. Horrified he scrambled away only to get a hand caught in the fibrous spongy thing below him and tumble back onto the ground.

It wasn't till now that he realised that it was purple, and that the light seemed to be coming from multiple directions at once, and that he was still alive.

Rolling over slowly he sat up and looked around, the bug was still sitting there, looking at him, behind it a cave wall and an entrance which they had presumably come through. The cave wall itself looked to be covered by more of the spongy purple stuff, though of a different consistency. Te only word that sprang to mind was "creepy".

Looking at the cave wall his eyes drew him further around, noticing sounds behind him for the first time. Slowly, almost afraid to look, he turned towards the middle of the cavern behind him.

The cavern was much bigger than he could have thought, it was shaped like a mechanical cog, or gear, mostly circular but with regular lumps off the side. He was in one of those lumps and had been deceived, the sharp curve of the wall suggesting a small chamber where instead he now sat staring in awe at a chamber that dwarfed most buildings.

Occupying the centre of the cavern, and in fact taking up the majority of the space here was a huge pulsing orange and green structure that was crawling with movement. Centrally it was massive, hundreds upon hundreds of bugs of different shapes and sizes crawling in and out of holes, doing god-only-knows what. Three massive branches of it stretched like pillars from the base of the central superstructure to the ceiling where they met with the rock and joined in the middle, apparently holding up the roof.

For several long moments he was stunned speechless, unmoving, just watching the monstrosity before him in all its terrible glory. He also realised that that was where the light was coming from. Nodules all over the hive-like structure emitted a bright glow that lit the cavern adequately.

Shifting his weight he went to stand up only to catch his knee on the inside hem of his shirt. This was odd enough in itself but he realised moments after that his attire was considerably more broken than he'd though possible. Gooey mucus still stuck to him in many places but what was more concerning was the absence of clothes sticking to him in many places. He wore only tattered remains, what was left dissolving in the mucus slowly as he watched.

Apparently it was at that point that the bugs decided they'd had enough of waiting. The defiler rammed him from behind, sending him sprawling across the ground, subsequently the dragging motion served to strip what little clothing remained intact from his body, shirt, jeans, socks, and most importantly underwear. The strange feeling of creepy purple stuff against his privates wasn't and experience he held onto for long though as he was bodily lifted off the ground moments later by that same large bug that had dragged him down here.

Holding him by the ankle it half carried, half dragged him across the creep towards the hive structure. As he realised what was happening he started to scream, kicking at the hardened shell with all his might.

The defiler bug continued, unconcerned by the feeble beating as it mounted the external ridges and dragged Patrick into one of the warren-like tunnels within the main structure.

After while he gave up screaming, dragged through the slimy maze until he realised that he couldn't get himself out even if the bug did let go. When he was unceremoniously dumped into a pool of more goopy stuff and felt himself get dragged down by tendrils that seemed intent on attaching themselves to every orifice of his body he was resigned that his number was pretty much up.

_And again, Kerrigan smiled._

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_AN: Ok thanks for reading, with any luck I'll have the next chapter in a few hours, but if you read it, review anyway!_


	4. Chapter 3

_AN: Ok so I didn't get this up in the few hours like I promised. I got given a lift home instead of catching the bus so it didn't happen._

_To make up for it here is 3 more chapters, enjoy!_

_**Disclaimer: Standard.**  
_

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**Battle on a New Front**

_**Chapter 3: Strange Dreams & **__**Rude Awakenings**_

_The swarm floated through space, hundreds of hungry mouths on torpedo shaped bodies, winging their way on membranous limbs to places unknown._

_Deep in the heart of a place, riddled with enormous structures that crawled with carapaced creatures and stuck high into the burnt orange sky, slimy larvae squirmed in the soft purple groundscape._

_Creatures of nightmare, with scythe-like arms rip through human bodies, soon leaving only scattered remnants of what was once a town's population._

_Many things, horrifying, amazing, or simply awing, link together through the murk, all of them overlaid by a sibilant whisper._

_The whisper was Kerrigan._

Finally Patrick awoke, fresh air striking his face and causing him to gasp, open his eyes and immediately regret it as stinging goo ssaults him. Reeling he stumbles on something unseen and goes down in a pile of sloppy, slimy something. He rubs at his eyes only to discover there is no need. Upon trying to open them a second time he finds himself seeing through the goo, a second, transparent set of eyelids. He wasn't sure how he knew he had those but when he rubbed his eyes the muscles had twitched and he just… knew. Somehow.

That wasn't the only thing he knew.

Slowly he picks himself up again, crawling out from the tangled mesh of umbilicals, membranes and other slimy organ-related things that had been attached to or wrapped around him in the zerg cocoon. He knew what it was now.

Almost without thinking he ran a hand across his chest to wipe off a heavy mass of goo only to discover his fingers ran across a slightly ridged carapace that was apparently part of him now and it was that that was the heavy mass, not goo. Looking down he saw himself and gasped, yet he knew, but still it takes a moment to soak in. Human skin still showed through in some places, the carapace only lightly bound his stomach and had partings on the inside of his thighs, as well as a few other small areas which made sense for movement.

Experimentally he lifted a foot, touched it with a finger, briefly turned his attention elsewhere and blinked, not actually sure about what was going on between his legs, for some reason that was something he didn't know.

Noticing his fingers he looked at the claws, folded back presently, and just stared. There was so much to take in! Again experimentally he flexed his fingers, watching the claws flip out, and back again.

He probably could have gone on like this for hours, noticing one thing after another and slowly taking it all in but fate it seemed had a different plan.

That sibilant whisper that had haunted his dreams for so long returned, only now it was less of a whisper and more like a hiss, startling and entrancing all the same.

"Ah Patrick, you're awake. You have languished in the embrace of my brood for four months but now you're here, and you're alive."

He knew it was in his head but still he turned on the spot, kicking through the remains of the chrysalis as he spoke aloud, "Who are you?" But he already knew, and she knew he knew, she'd put the knowledge in his head herself.

"Oh Patrick," she laughed, "You know who I am, and I think you know what I want from you."

Patrick still spoke aloud, but he sagged, her mental presence overwhelming, "Sarah Kerrigan… Queen of Blades." His voice was barely above a whisper.

Kerrigan seemed unable to keep the mirth from her mental response, "Why yes, and pretty much queen bitch of the universe rig ht now, if I do say so myself, and now you are mine."

Patrick shook his head, scarcely able to believe it. He'd heard about the Zerg when the United Earth Directorate had sent off the fleet, highly publicised of course, to "Protect Humans Everywhere". Of course then they'd just thought the Zerg were an animal scourge of some sort. Not anything like this.

"You're quiet my little friend. Aren't you grateful that I've given you the chance to be the Prince of Blades? That you're alive?"

"You killed my family!"

The presence of Kerrigan smiled in his mind, "And I'm sure you loved them very much… or did you? Your brother was a socially awkward jerk whom your mother doted her attention on, and your father kept out of it because he spent so much time working. Sure you didn't have anyone else but was it really good?"

With a sigh Patrick bows his head in defeat, she had him, she was right, there had been a hundred times when he'd wished he could get away from them. Hell, he'd already started saving money with his part-time job so he could move out immediately when he got to University age.

And Kerrigan knew.

He didn't have to say anything, she was practically inside his head, "Now Patrick, you had untapped psionic potential, on a subtler level than most humans, I felt your subtle cries among thousands from across the vast reaches of space the very moment I turned my attention to Earth. Will you be my Prince of Blades?"

The question was Rhetorical, she already knew what he'd say, it wasn't a decision, merely acceptance. For the last time he responds aloud to her, though he himself barely hears the whispered word. Perhaps he was damned, or perhaps he was saved, for now he didn't know but he wanted to live, live it seems he would. The word was lost in the soft silence of the hive, standing with bated breath, but it seemed to echo around inside his head for ages, one little word:

"Yes."

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_AN: Need I say it?_


	5. Chapter 4

_Enter stage right, new characters._

**_Disclaimer: Yeah, this bit's mine, sort of. I don't own the Zerg though. :(_**

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**Battle on a New Front**

_**Chapter 4: Military Intelligence?**_

Papers were scattered across the desk, graphs, written data, satellite photos and the like, everything that didn't fit on the dozen screens around the room, hanging on the wall in an evenly spaced fashion around the massive horse-shoe shaped desk. Amidst all this sat Agent Davies. Ever since that anomalous blip that had appeared and apparently been destroyed four months ago here he'd been trying to find something.

All the way back here on little old Earth their data on the Zerg was sketchy, only what had been sent back by the UED fleet before contact had been lost. Not that contact was regular to begin with.

The flight recordings from the wraith-fighters, unfortunately out-dated models, showed something which was unmistakably alien, and organic, yet it was something they'd never seen here. It roughly matched the description sent back in the UED information packet, but the promised more detailed scans, and information on the Zerg creature had never come, the next information packet had never come, leaving Earth and all its colonies in the Directorate in the dark.

Not that anyone else had identified it as Zerg before, they'd just said, "Here Davies, you're not doing much, look into this blip for us." And he'd been handed an envelope with time-stamped satellite pictures of a heat signature floating in the atmosphere and the report of the pilots involved, which was wonderfully undescriptive as military types seemed wont to be.

After retrieving the flight tapes it had been him that had identified it as a Zerg Overlord, either that or something entirely unknown. He preferred to think that there were only so many possible life forms in the galaxy that would be unknown though and he'd stuck with his Zerg theory.

Poring over recordings and sensor readings he'd eventually tracked it back to a tiny hyperspace disturbance almost completely concealed by Jupiter's massive signal shadow, a shadow that wasn't high energy enough for the most insignificant message courier. Its speed had been so low, and its heat signature so insignificant that it had passed by every sensor bank, alarm system, and security wall in the system and in orbit and dropped like a balloon down to earth.

Then it had been destroyed.

That should've been the end of it, except why was it here in the first place?

Shoving hair out of his eyes he picks up his coffee, takes a sip and makes a face. It was cold.

Getting up from his chair he wanders back out of the office and down the corridor, heading for the local employees kitchen to get a refill. Why would a lone Zerg overlord come all the way here, float around for a bit, and then get blown up? The UED fleet couldn't have been that much trouble, they'd lost contact with them so it seemed reasonable to assume they'd been destroyed. That eliminated the possibility that it was running from something, why would it have run here anyway?

Tipping out the cold sludge he stuck it in the rinser for a minute while he thought more.

It could have been a scout, yet what little information they had suggested that the Zerg didn't need to physically send a scout to gain intel, and that for the most part the Zerg were content to simply pick a target and swarm it until it gave up, regardless of the cost. So something didn't add up there. No other colonies anywhere between Earth and the distant Koprulu sector had any reports that indicated they'd had scouts. He knew, he'd spent a month checking them all out.

As the dispenser pours some new hot coffee he waves briefly to a co-worker, leaving immediately as the machine finishes pouring.

There were two other things that bothered him. Satellite images showed another heat source, this one vanishingly small, that dropped from the overlord just a few minutes before it was destroyed. The other point was a missing person's report. After he'd been put on this "anomaly" he'd requested that all military or police reports from the area be forwarded to him.

Of course he'd received hundreds, all of them useless, or quickly solved and explained. Well, all except one, there was one that didn't add up. A boy missing from the safari car where the rest of his family had been killed, the car was torn apart but there was no animal left in the world today that would have, or even could have done that, it didn't add up, and there was definitely a missing body. Add to that a strange compound that they found at the site and there was anomaly number two.

Course when he'd presented this to his superiors they'd raised an eyebrow and laughed, "Seriously? Well if it's the Zerg and it's been four months why haven't we seen them yet?"

He had to admit they had a point, most reports indicated the Zerg went from no to go in under a week, they should have had a full-blown invasion on their hands by now, yet they didn't.

Falling back into his chair and re-watching the motion footage of the tiny heat source vanishing he shakes his head; he could be here for a loooong time.

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_AN: Please Review this chapter. I really want feedback on this bit._


	6. Chapter 5

_Final one of these three. Hope you like it._

_Also belated thankyou to Nionque for reviewing Chapter 2, much luffs._

**_Disclaimer: If I owned this would I be here? Short answer: No._**

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**Battle on a New Front**

_**Chapter 5: Admin Privileges**_

A moment after he accepted his position under Kerrigan, Patrick suddenly became aware of the hive cluster around him. Not in a way like you may expect to have hundreds of thousands of hungry minds cluster in on your psyche, but more like logging into a network and being given admin privileges. It didn't invade his mind or suddenly swamp his ability to think, it was as if it was suddenly just all there, right at his fingertips.

He could feel the massive hive structure and the hundreds of thousands of drone workers that had been grown as the structure itself, and then the modified creep it extended, hollowed out this massive cavern. On the periphery of the hive he could sense new chambers being hollowed out, connected to the main one by tunnels that stuck like spokes in a wheel from the cog-like deviations in the otherwise circular cavern wall.

He could see all the options spread out before him in a mental landscape that he could focus on, and yet not obscure his vision as he began to move higher in the hive structure, leaving his chrysalis chamber and navigating organic tunnels and chambers, now laid out in a sequence that made perfect sense.

Generating at the base of the hive structure were spore capsules, or as he thought briefly, "creep bombs". A passing thought sent several dozen drones to harvest these and take them to the hollowing chambers to speed the work.

Wryly he smiled, this was like the ultimate simulation empire building game.

Kerrigan, not far away in her mind cut in, "Don't become complacent, you know why you're here, achieve the objective, don't forget it. You are alone out here, be careful, and don't die… It would be quite a shame to have to find a new prince."

Cringing he sent an affirmative response through the psionic link, emerging into the final high-chamber of the hive structure. As he did so she retreated back into brooding, she was preparing for something, he didn't know what, but it was something big and he had a suspicious feeling that he was her ace in the hole.

Now he stood in the honeycomb top section, a rigid structure to provide shelter to the drone swarm when under fierce attack, or form fierce weather, and to add a bit of extra defence for the structure itself from whatever could be thrown at it, which was pretty much anything now that he thought about it.

The comical image of an unruly teenager throwing a coke can at the hive structure sprang briefly to mind and he laughed. Here he could see the whole cavern, and the thousands of drones, yet he could feel them too, in every scurrying action as they distributed mineral caches and spore clusters from their generation points inside the hive structure, or around its base, to the most distant reaches of the creep. The creep could be maintained indefinitely without this activity, and spread at least most of that distance effectively without this, but by doing this it grew much faster, chewing through dirt and rock and providing its own structural support to the new underground regions.

Above a small gathering of overlords floated harmlessly near the ceiling, not many could fit effectively in the chamber, their large gas-filled bodies taking up a significant amount of space but there was more than adequate here to convene his intention to the swarm without him needing to give close attention to any one part, it was a perfect system.

The first of the extension caverns he deemed to be of sufficient size to begin the process of developing a spawning pool and immediately a drone was diverted to begin the growth process.

From his honeycomb palace he watched, somehow tirelessly, the goings on of his fledgling empire as he saw it.

_This time, it was he who smiled._

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_AN: Ok so this one was a tad short I know, I also know I may have taken a few liberties with the various attributes of the Hive. I haven't ever read the books, only played the games, so apologies if I've done something grossly wrong. (Please tell me I won't be offended haha.)_

_You know that button just down there? About - here? *points down* Yeah, you know you want to click it. ;)  
_


	7. Chapter 6

_Ok, so the weekend is over and back to public transport, which means there's another chapter!_

_Also, thanks to Nionque who pointed out that technically it shouldn't be possible to have a defiler with no spawning pool. I've included a bit in this chapter which should clear up that little issue._

_**Disclaimer: I only own Patrick, and the high-powered rifle... or something. **  
_

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**Battle on a New Front**

_**Chapter 6: The Secrets of the Hive**_

Patrick watched a cocoon, the bloated white thing hanging part off the wall in a generation chamber. He could see this from anywhere in the Hive, watch from a million angles but he felt more productive watching it in person.

Smiling he shook his head, that was probably a concept he'd get over very quickly but for now he'd watch.

Of course the individually tailored extensions of the hive cluster that could be created were more ideal for this but here in the hive he could create anything he wanted, albeit at a far slower pace. Thinking back to the spawning pool he just grins like an idiot, he'd started generating zerglings in the hive, a half dozen at each generation chamber, the maximum. The spawning pool had finished its mutation and he'd doubled the number that the hive took four days to create in only one.

Slowly the cocoon before him began to split, a green-limned claw appendage emerging. After his folly with the zerglings Kerrigan had taken the time to instruct him in his error and the proper use off the generation chambers. All around him, markings on the hive had lost their burnt-orange markings, slowly replacing them with purple ones since coming under his control. This would be the first of an army of super-soldiers though, a private guard of hunter-killers.

With a shriek the modified hydralisk tore free of its cocoon, shredding white bio-fibre and extending itself to its full height where its head brushed the fleshy ceiling. With a nod Patrick sent it off to its business, along with the defiler that had taken him originally.

Satisfied he turned and began descending in the hive structure, another spawning pool would complete soon, he wanted to see it.

_The old prospector sat around with his colleagues at the fire, it was cold but not yet the sort of chill which would at night scatter frost like blown sugar across this dynamic landscape._

_The miners were a rowdy lot, they'd brought back some ore that actually looked promising for once. He was too old of course, that's why he was the prospector, they brought it back, he sorted it out._

_He was quiet though, something had been bothering him recently, the ground seemed odd. He couldn't put his finger on it but more and more, what the miners brought back didn't seem to be the way that sixty years of experience told him it should be._

_Rubbing his eyes he gave an amused chuckle. In other parts of the world an expensive machine would have been used by an over-zealous company to analyse every molecule of the rock, but here in the eternally over-populated and poverty stricken Africa there was still plenty of opportunity for small timers like themselves to go searching, occasionally they even found something, for a short while._

_Turning over a rock, finely veined with purple that shouldn't be there, he is oblivious to the noise around him until a surprisingly high pitched scream snaps his attention, only for it to be cut off a moment later. There was only one miner not around the fire, the young lad who had wanted adventure._

_Standing, the old man collects his rifle. He was the only one with a rifle, no one else believed the stories of lone big predators still alive in the wild, but he was old school._

_There was shuffling and crunching, now all the miners were standing looking at the source of the sound._

_The old prospector backed away a few steps, the miners would all be in his way if he shot now._

_After a bit the crunching stopped, though the shuffling continued, getting louder as it edged its way closer to the fire. One of the miners let out a shout and pointed but the others couldn't see what he was looking at and after a moment he fell silent._

_And then it burped._

_One man almost got as far as laughing before a cloud of brown dust swept out of the darkness and swirled around. A moment later the fire was extinguished as the old prospector backpedalled and the first gurgling scream cut through the night._

_Vaguely he could see as his eyes adjusted a low shape, laying about the miners. They ran but it was fast and seemed to cut them off, though he couldn't be too sure, the dust, or whatever it was, was too thick._

_Cold sweat ran into his eyes and trickled down his back as he continued to back slowly away from the cloud and whatever beast was contained within it._

_As fortune would have it though he stepped on a dry twig, the sound startling him and appearing very sharp, despite the dust-muffled screams and shouts so close by. _

_A faint slithering sound to his left was all the warning he got as he swung the rifle that direction and beheld a sight that would haunt him, very literally, for the rest of his days. A creature, rose up, indistinct in the darkness but no less terrifying as starlight glinted off its claws and what appeared to be two scythe-like appendages. Without even thinking his finger pulled the trigger, the massive high-powered weapon going off at nearly point-blank range._

_The sound that came next was somewhere between a shriek and a roar and as terrifying as the both put together. The prospector had seen where the shot hit it, it had recoiled as if struck in the head or upper neck. Numbly his fingers pulled the trigger again, another shot booming into the now otherwise silent night. This shot wasn't as accurate and it seemed to shake off some of its discomfort and began moving again towards him._

_Galvanised into action he raised the rifle and fired four more times into the head region, each booming shot followed by a crack mixed with a dull thud. _

_Then the gun clicked dry, no more shots._

_The creature swayed, took a step forwards and hesitated. A low groaning sound emitted from it as it seemed to slump but after a moment it took another step forward again. The old prospector took another few steps back, a glance sent towards his fallen comrades to see a bloated defiler struggling to drag itself across the ground. _

_Horrified he looked once more at the dark shape looming before him, turned, and ran. A coughing sound preceded a sharp pain in his shoulder and several thuds into the ground around him but he kept running, in his stubborn old man sort of way._

_And after a moment of dormancy, the Hunter-Killer followed…_

* * *

_So there it is, review, make suggestions, chances are I will include them unless they're totally pointless._

_With any luck another one this afternoon (I'm Australian for you American's wondering why they're coming up over night or something).  
_


	8. Chapter 7

_Ok so here we go again. I'm having a bit of writer's block, otherwise I would have had two chapters today, so seriously, feel free to suggest plot elements in any review._

**_Dislcaimer: If I can't spell disclaimer would I really own this stuff?_**

* * *

**Battle on a New Front**

_**Chapter 7: Blasted Pop-Ups**_

Davies had just about finished his morning coffee and settled in to yet another day of shuffling "anomaly reports" in the hope that something came up which would justify a physical investigation, when his one of his co-worker's decided to send him a bulletin.

The loud message tone startled him and he choked on the last of his coffee, clutching the edge of the desk with one hand as he coughed in the direction of the floor and tried not to spill his mug, not realising that it was of course empty. The message wasn't anything helpful, a chain-mail, as if those things still went around.

Rubbing the brow bone just above his right eye he put his empty mug down on a clear patch of desk and closed the pop-up, watching it peel away from the screen in false graphics before vanishing into the trash icon.

Taking a deep breath and attempting to relax again he flicks the main screen over to the filed reports to see if anything new had come in from the area he had under watch. He was just leaning in to focus on something when the screen flashed and the irritated face of his boss came onto the screen, in a pop-up window of course.

Agent Davies lurched back from the screen as his boss' voice emanated form the screen's speakers, "Davies! Have you made any progress with that anomaly thing yet? I swear if you don't find something believable soon I'm scrapping it, I need someone else on the waste treatment plant fiasco and I know how you just love waste treatment."

Looking serious he nodded and provided the standard response about how the boss would be updated immediately should something be found and so on. As an additional he suggested that he may have found something more conclusive but that was really just to avoid waste treatment. Who seriously wanted to investigate a drowning person in a waste treatment tank? Secretly though he had no idea if he could provide anything more than he had, there just seemed to bee nothing there.

Eventually, after a brief rant about squandered resources, his boss quit out and he closed the message pop-up, the window peeling away to the trash icon again.

Taking another deep breath he retrieved his coffee cup and looked inside, contemplating whether he should go get another since this morning was practically a write off. As he sat there leaning back in his chair, mug in hand, the message tone went off again just as he went to stand up. With a small yelp he started, the mug flipping out of his fingers and evading his ability to catch it as it tumbled to shatter noisily on the floor. Well so much for that.

Irritated now he turned back to the screen and looked at the pop-up, this time it was actually something useful though, a new report filed from the area he'd marked out to watch. Course he wasn't exactly excited, there were a dozen reports a day from that area and none of them were usually any good, he'd only had the one about that missing boy so far. Here was something else though. As his eyes canned the text he sat up straighter and rolled his chair forwards more to look at the screen as if he could absorb the information faster by proximity. Seemed a bunch more people had died, remains identified to belong to twelve other people, apparently mauled and eaten by a wild animal, possibly escaped from a zoo. But he'd checked all those, no animal escapes had been reported, and what sort of animal would kill and eat twelve people?

Apparently it was a group of miners, guys down on their luck hoping to find a break with something the bigger mining companies had overlooked. One reported among their number was unaccounted for. The old guy whose information they'd been following when they went looking for wealth. The guys down there had actually done a decent job for a change, with pictures and extrapolations, annotations and the like on the animal tracks leading to the site and so forth, apparently there had been two animals, different ones too. Several strange spines had been found in the ground not far form the massacre, scattered along the tracks made by the old man and the second beast that apparently escaped the carnage. They'd also found empty shells from one of the old-style high powered rifles, but no bullets. The wildlife expert the African's had consulted claimed one of those shots, correctly fired could have stopped an elephant in its tracks, if there had been an elephant. Apparently this creature had taken six shots and survived though, he was baffled.

They'd also found the same biological residue found after the case of the missing boy Patrick.

Grinning he punched the air and pinged the boss, he had his argument ready, it had just needed something like this. Cracking his fingers he could keep the goofy smile off his face, he'd escaped waste treatment.

* * *

_Please review, seriously I have writer's block, so suggest or get nothing haha._

_Hope you're enjoying it so far. :)  
_


	9. Chapter 8

_Ok, so I'm puttering along here with ideas. I've realised much to my disappointment that my breaks between text doesn't translate into here like I thought it did. So apologies if it is ever confusing, however, as a general rule of thumb if it goes from italics to standard or vice versa you're changing to a different character. This doesn't work for everything but it just means that I will remember to keep major characters in their own chapters. Sorry for any confusion. I know that Chapter 1 doesn't really fit that model but it's way back and I'm sure you can work it out._

_**Disclaimer: I only own my little plot twists, Patrick, pounding flash weapons, ore dug up from the ground with creep in it, and the Queen Spire... oh wait, I haven't told you about that yet.  
**_

* * *

**Battle on a New Front**

_**Chapter 8: Loose Ends**_

_The hunter-killer stood watching, visible only as a single dark shadow on the horizon. The old man with his pounding flash weapon had hurt it, its mission left incomplete as he stumbled into the darkness and it was forced to watch, unable to shift its damaged limbs into action. Now the prey had taken to ground in a settlement._

_Its eyes, black and glassy sweep back and forth across the landscape. There were many prey down there it could smell, sense, hear… but it could not sneak up on the prey. Everywhere there was light, movement. _

_Its brethren were helplessly without minds of their own but it was among the elite, it knew its place to be infinitely more valuable, and its task to be that much more important. If the other prey had pounding flash weapons too it could die, its mission would be unfulfilled… this was unacceptable._

_Slowly it began to creep around, stalking the prey at a distance. Its time would come…_

Patrick hissed in frustration. Every bit an old feudal style king he had banished the defiler to the farthest extremities of the Hive cluster for becoming so foolishly bloated and unable to ensure the completion of the mission. That was the last time he would leave such a critical operation to be carried out via the control of the overlords based on his general will.

So the old man had escaped, his defiler was useless, Kerrigan was smirking at the back of his psyche, the secrecy of his existence was possibly compromised and to top it all off his back itched and he couldn't get to it through the carapace. Now that he thought about it the only positive thing he could think of was that at the periphery of his awareness the hunter-killer was still doggedly continuing its mission.

Frustrated still he scratched ineffectually at the hard bony structure on his back, he was sure it was bigger than before, which was just irritating. He felt top-heavy and didn't even have anything to show for it. At least Kerrigan was top heavy because she had those wings. Ok she couldn't fly with them but they looked like wings. All he had was an irritating bony bulge. Sure it might save him if he got shot from behind but did it have to be so thick?

With a conscious effort he stopped himself from brooding and stepped into a depository shaft, descending quickly to the base of the Hive. He of course didn't need to go anywhere but it kept him busy.

Inadvertently he stepped on a spore nodule generating in the sludge at the end of the shaft, purple creep spore matter exploding upwards and layering him with spongy material up to his midriff. Where it came against the human skin not covered by the new exoskeleton it seemed cold, and itched. In frustration he kicked another one of the generating nodules which also exploded. Why did everything itch at the moment! Even his head kept itching, and he was sure his hair was falling out.

Simmering quietly he walked past several openings that lead to the satellite caverns where there was now an alternating series of spawning pools and hydralisk dens, each cavern in turn devoted to just one. Down here he was building an army, and he wasn't done yet.

In the burrowing they had come across a different type of rock in one direction, a denser rock, and so now the underground hive cluster grew irregularly. Entering into a tunnel he quickly emerged into a cavern with a spawning pool. Here he crossed the pool unerringly on the divides between separate pool sections, maintaining perfect balance and grip on the narrow fluid-soaked pathways. Around him the zerglings could be seen, growing or sleeping dormant beneath the silky surface of the generation fluid, while a comparatively smaller number of them prowled around the edges or stalked the pathways like he did.

Soon he passed into another tunnel, one of two he could have used to get to this location. Here was the other great achievement of bioengineering that Kerrigan had prepared for him to use; The Queen's Spire.

In the main cavern the hive was designed so that, when it was necessary, it could rise up, drawn by the pillars that met at the ceiling onto the surface, punching through the ground from underneath and drawing up its roots to fill the place of the original pillars. An ingenious system which would not only preserve the massive cavern as it rose but that would also allow for a new hive to grow in the space vacated by the original, allowing the process to be repeated if the surface hive were ever to be destroyed.

The queen's spire was something else entirely though. Even now as he witnessed its emergence into the world he could barely believe it could work. It was called the queen's spire for two reasons. The first was that unlike traditional queen's nests this would rise higher above the skyline in a majestic fury that was indeed worthy of the descriptive additive "spire". The other was that it was in a way actually a fusion of a queen's nest and a conventional spire. Spaced evenly around it were six spires, essentially created outright in a greater spire format. Except underground it wasn't possible for a spire to truly form without having a cavern comparable in size to that which the hive itself dominated. This was obviously impractical. So, these six spires were all connected at the base to the overall superstructure of the queen's nest in the centre, and none of them were quite what you'd expect.

Other structures down here were functional now. These weren't designed to be functional until they reached the surface. Down here they were compressed, layers upon layers slotted in next to each other right into the centre of the structure and right up to the point where they fused with the ceiling. Cocooned between the layers of the queen's central nest there lay dormant over a hundred sleeping queens, frozen within the folded layers until later. Within the layers of the growing spires were mutalisks, a hundred each per spire with more growing each day as layers became completed, each mutsalisk would be mutated into a Guardian before they were released when the entire queen spire structure expanded telescopically onto the surface skyline in all its terrible glory.

Watching layers of cocoon fibre fall away from the spire branch nearest him Patrick could feel the hungry minds of the slumbering beasts as well as that one special mind at the heart of each spire, his ace-in the hole so to speak.

_But a great distance away it was not Patrick or Kerrigan who smiled… it was someone else._

* * *

_So, another installment, did you like it?_

_Someone suggested widespread chaos as something I should do, however I will have to regrettably hold off on that for now. There's a few extra plot elements to introduce before it all goes to hell._

_As always suggestions welcome, it's an open story which I really started randomly on a whim and I never read any of the books for StarCraft, only played the game._

_Finally, you know the green button? Imagine it as red... you know you want to press the big red button.  
_


	10. Chapter 9

_Ok so this one is a bit of a short one, Agent Davies again. Not really a lot happening here but important to put in before we get all out of time cohesion or something._

_Just in case there's a lack of clarity this is an approximate timeline:_

_day 1: Overlord appears._

_day 15: Patrick gets kidnapped._

_day 113: Patrick wakes up._

_day 125: Hunter-killer wakes up._

_day 128: Incident with miners._

_day 141: Current Chapter._

_Also I will try to keep my zerg units up to date. Because this is supposed to be set between Brood War and SC2 there may be a few things that seem a tad odd, just assume they're halfway in between or something.  
_

_**Disclaimer: You know what I own.**  
_

* * *

**Battle on a New Front**

_**Chapter 9: Tentative Investigation**_

Agent Davies was in over his head.

It wasn't that he was failing to achieve what he was being paid to do. It was that suddenly he was being required to do something he absolutely was not trained for and was certainly not being paid enough to do.

Maybe it was the smug smile he'd had on his face when he spoke to his boss. Or maybe the boss just wanted to get rid of him. Somehow though, he had been landed with the senior position of organising and leading the investigation into his zerg claims, despite hardly being qualified. Sure he wanted a promotion but this had the ring of his superiors simply not taking him seriously. Shouldn't they have taken this away from him and assigned it to someone more senior if they really believed it could be the zerg? They didn't know much but they knew enough to be extremely cautious if it were the zerg.

Yet here he was, strapped into a seat in a drop ship along with a full squad of combat marines with firebat compliment, a marine recon squad including ghost spotter, a xeno-anthropologist and four maintenance and management personnel to ensure the portable command hub they had with them would function smoothly.

Why was -he- here though? What sick joke was the universe playing on him that he, who was afraid of crowds and large open spaces, was leading the operation that would take place in an area that was essentially open savannah?

The dropship had risen quickly above the atmosphere and was hurtling towards its target location, the journey a measly three hours to go halfway around the world. The marines had joked, talked, so on. They were bored, not much happened here on earth and this was a bit of excitement, though most were sceptical. The anthropologist had talked with the management crew. Only the ghost had remained silent, face unreadable behind the goggles and breathing mask that it seemed was never taken off, at least in public.

Thin as a rake the ghost nevertheless had the deadly aura that some people carry which sets them aside as being able to snap some vital part of your body if you irritated them too much. He'd actually tried talking to the ghost, directly opposite him in the seating arrangement, but the soldier had remained stoically silent, barely shifting his head to indicate he'd heard Davies' words. Ultimately he'd given up.

The ghost's call-sign was printed in grey on the black left breast of the outfit: Reaper.

He had no way to confirm it but Davies secretly suspected that "Reaper", whoever he or she may be" was the person really in charge of this operation, and that he was there to distract people from the focus of power.

Nevertheless he was here, and as the dropship punched back into the atmosphere, shuddering as it tore through the boundary layers and entered the stratosphere he couldn't help but feel a little bit of excitement. He was really here and in charge, at least officially. It scared the living crap out of him too but at least he would see first hand if he was right… for better or worse.

The intercom squealed momentarily before subsiding to a crackle. For the first time in the whole flight Davies saw the ghost make an uncontrolled movement, it flinched. No time to dwell though as the pilot's voice started speaking, "Right people, we're descending fast now, please ensure all items are properly attached to whatever they should be properly attached to and double check your harnesses."

There was some laughing as marine's picked up helmets and resealed them and so forth before the pilot's voice came through again, "Prepare for extreme deceleration in ten…"

Davies gripped his harness in a sudden bout of nervousness. What if they crashed? What if they blew up? Quashing the voice in his head he focused on sitting straight and holding the harness, "…six, five, four…"

One of the recon marines laughed and pointed a finger at him, commenting on the whiteness of his knuckles to his companion. Davies would have said something in response but then the pilot said, "… one."

The entire ship lurched as the descent thrusters fired, ties creaked, helmets and suits clanked against safety harnesses and bulkheads.

After a moment the g-force subsided and a clunk indicated they had landed. The pilot's cheery voice issued out over the intercom again, "Tactical insertion drop complete. You may now disembark from the vehicle, thankyou for flying UED airlines."

Sourly Davies thought the pilot was enjoying this far too much as harnesses were unclasped and people started to move. They were here.

* * *

_As always please review, just because it's awesome when you do._

_It's Friday here so no public transport till Monday, don't expect an update tomorrow. :)  
_


	11. Chapter 10

_Ok so the weekend's over and we're back with another installment. That's pretty much all I have to say._

_**Disclaimer: This is tedious, anywhoo. I don't own any trademarked aspects of the StarCraft franchise.**  
_

* * *

**Battle on a New Front**

_**Chapter 10: The Thin Edge of Fear**_

Maheshu stood watch outside the traveller's house where the old man had been put. The old prospector, known to the settlements in habitants by reputation if not by personal experience, had come stumbling in near the end of the previous day, babbling in a dehydrated delirium about monsters that ate miners and kept coming after being shot in the head.

Now a delirious old man babbling about monsters would normally be ignored, but the prospector was known to be hard to shake, not only that but he'd come in with some sort of barb protruding from the shoulder region of his back. The doctors had never seen anything like it so they removed it, applied every antiseptic cream they could think of, and then bandaged it up, with regenerative bandages of course. Once that was done the old man had ceased and settled into a mostly untroubled sleep.

The people were on edge though. Stuff like this just didn't happen in the real world. Animal attacks were a thing from the distant past, scepticism on aliens had long since gripped most of the people of earth, located as they were at the heart of a spreading space nation that had yet to officially run into any viable alien races.

The sun was setting on the horizon and now the hastily hired "watch" marched out with whatever guns they had managed to find in a demilitarised town to take up positions around the settlement fringes. A precaution only, surely it wouldn't bee needed.

Wearily Maheshu leant back against the wall, he would've liked to be back home tonight, there was a raid going on in one of his online games that he was supposed to take part in. Sighing he almost laughed, a wry smile creasing his face. Well, they'd just have to wait for him.

_The hunter-killer watched, and waited, biding its time and laying its traps. The prey was prepared but it was death, it would not be stopped. It waited until the day-risen moon fell, leaving everything in near-total darkness, only the lights in the settlement proper were on and they left plenty of shadows and holes in the perimeter._

_Moving swiftly and quietly it followed a line of shadow, slipping inside the ring of watchers as they wandered around without the discipline that a real watch would have. Then it took up its position and waited._

_It wasn't long before the first member of the watch deviated back to his original starting point, and then drifted towards the hunter's hiding place. In a moment when his back was turned it moved, rising out of the shadows and releasing a wave of spines with a dull squelch sound. An instant later a dull thud was them ripping through the target's body, cutting off any screams before they could be uttered._

Maheshu yawned, he was tired and it was after midnight now. Less than an hour perhaps and his replacement would come to relieve him. Behind him in the house the old man kept crying out and mumbling. The first time he'd gone in to investigate but found him sleeping again by the time he got there. Now he just ignored it.

Eight thousand people sleeping soundly and here he was in the cold, how was this fair?

Irritated he stamped his feet and shifted his position. What did they expect him to do anyway? He only had a hand gun and the old prospector had apparently carried a full-on rifle! This was stupid, the beast wasn't coming anyway.

_Now the hunter entered the settlement. It had stalked and eliminated each member of the watch in turn like the first one, each going down silently and very much dead._

_Now it watched Maheshu, the last "watcher" as it thought of them. There was a lot of light here and a long way for it to travel to get close enough to guarantee a kill. It's remarkable vision picked out details from over five hundred yards, this watcher was young and fit, strong and healthy. _

_It got as close as it could, and pounced…_

Maheshu had his eyes shut, the gun in his hand just because he felt slightly safer holding it like that. An odd slithering sound made him open his eyes and look around, nothing was there though and he warily settled back. After a few minutes more it came again and he opened his eyes. The sound didn't stop though, and this time he saw it. In all its terrifying glory it took him several seconds to react, shocked to see this thing bounding towards him.

Drawing breath to shout he raised the gun only to feel searing pain, in his leg, in his stomach, in his chest, in his arm, and in his throat. He couldn't shout, he couldn't barely breath, his numb fingers couldn't put pressure on the trigger as he slipped sideways and collapsed limply on the ground, conscious but immobilised.

Of course he was still alive but the thing had been a long way off still. From his vantage point he could see some spines scattered on the ground where they'd broken after hitting the wall and such.

In the space of three heartbeats the creature was upon him, and past him. He was sure it would take him but amidst the pain he vaguely heard the sharp crack of a door being shattered, a low growl. Was the old man dead? Alive? What had happened?

Strangely he didn't think the creature had found what it wanted as it re-emerged from the wreck that was the doorway. As he was hoisted bodily off the ground, bleeding profusely and unable to breath, his phone slipped from his pocket and shattered on the ground. A moment later as he slipped, whole, down the slimy gullet of the creature his last thought was that his online friends would be waiting a long time to do that raid they were planning…

* * *

_So, points for guessing what happens next. :)_

_Review please, next one coming soon.  
_


	12. Chapter 11

_Ok so it's been a while, I apologise. I had a bad case of writers block followed by a worse case of life._

_Anywhoo here's two chapters to make up for it. This one's really short but the next one is possibly the longest so far so, you be the judge._

_**Disclaimer: I own the blips... that is all... ... ...*blip***  
_

* * *

**Battle on a New Front**

_**Chapter 11: Strange Blips**_

Agent Davies had been right, or mostly so anyway. Once they had landed it had shortly been proven that he was unsure of himself when it came to setting up the operation on the ground, not least because it was nigh time. After twenty minutes of floundering the ghost had stepped forward, its genderless, almost computerised voice issuing suggestions and quiet orders from behind the mouthpiece.

The administration tent went up first and then the marines set about setting up their personal tents while the management and maintenance staff set up the sensor array, with the ghost peering intently over their shoulder.

When they finally were organised and flicked on the switch for the sensor array it hissed for a few moments before clearing to reveal… nothing. The settlement they expected to see was there, otherwise it was just wide open space, devoid of anything interesting.

Not sure whether or not to be relieved or disappointed Davies just nodded at the ghost, who carried out a previous suggestion and sent two marines who had been loitering nearby off to get others to set up the defence perimeter.

The ghost just looked at Davies for a minute and then turned to walk away, only to be interrupted by a shrill beep from the sensors. The dark figure spun back to look faster than Davies could turn his head to the screen where a blip, approximately the size of a fighter plane but of indeterminate design, zipped up from the settlement and vanished rapidly into the night.

Davies just looked at the ghost, who shrugged and looked back.

As the night wore on more strange blips occurred. A series of blips moved in sections of a wide circle around the base, but the marines sent out to investigate found nothing. That same small craft, or one like it, whizzed overhead almost faster than the sensor array could track it, and thought it passed directly over them it did so silently and not one of them saw it. Finally a blip moved out of the settlement and travelled at speed to the middle of nowhere where it promptly vanished. Suffice to say they were all grateful when the morning finally came…

* * *

_Straight on to the next chapter! Go!_


	13. Chapter 12

_You're here! That was quick, congratulations and all that._

_Now where were we?_

_Oh right._

_**Disclaimer: This is why I own the blips. XD**  
_

* * *

**Battle on a New Front**

_**Chapter 12: Hive Comparisons**_

Patrick felt the collective shiver of primal rage that swept through the hive after the hunter-killer realised its quarry had escaped. With only a single thought several dozen zerglings lifted their snouts from locations around the spawning pool, emptying the rooms of movement as quickly as they themselves could flow into the growing subterranean network of tunnels that lead to the surface.

After a moment's thought he changed the plan slightly, diverting some of the zerglings towards that new human base which had sprung up. These zerg would pop in and out of the tunnels, distracting them, or so he hoped. The rest continued surging towards the village where the hunter-killer now tore a rampage through the streets.

_The hunter-killer was furious, its prey had eluded it, though it was fed now and somehow it would find its prey, wherever its prey was hiding in this place._

_How it had eluded it was beyond its understanding, but it would find it still._

_The door of the nearest structure gave way easily before it and it punched through. The noise awoke the prey inside who came running, bringing themselves to it. With shrieking screams they fell beneath its scythe-like arms as it scraped through the cramped warren that they lived in._

_Bursting out from the back it saw a flimsy barrier. This too gave way easily before it, as did the door of the next dwelling place. More screams._

_Soon it was chasing knots of people down the open streets, it had kicked over the nest and the hornets were coming to buzz angrily around. They could not touch it really though. Their weapons did not do sufficient damage to pose a threat, the soldiers of this hive had died hours before._

Patrick let the hunter killer run wild, allowing the zerglings to rise up and slip into the town, forming a ring at the outskirts and working their way in. The adults had mostly left their houses, moving into the streets in an attempt to drive off the hunter. This left children and elderly at home, free to be found by the encroaching wave of zerglings as the hunter-killer drew the adults into the central town square.

For a moment he was distracted, his back itching under that thick carapace which he scratched at ineffectually again. Kerrigan hadn't deigned to speak to him for a while now. He figured he was either doing well or had already doomed himself if that were the case.

Shifting his attention back to the conflict at hand he saw the hunter-killer smash a Molotov cocktail out of the air with its scythe-like appendage, fiery death spewing partly onto it and partly onto a crowbar wielding human behind it who shrieked and flailed back. The hunter lay about itself, clearing a small space with one flaming arm and letting loose a volley of barbs into the lynch mob that now pressed in close.

It had been saving the barbs, to ensure that it had them when it needed them. Now as they ripped clean through a half dozen people and left as many again staggering and collapsing to the ground shrieks split the air and many of the people scattered back, retreating to slightly safer positions, though a few brave souls with knives and axes and other assorted sharp implements hung close, continually trying to get behind it.

Patrick just watched impassively from afar as the zerglings got closer, invading homes and ending the unfortunate lives within with a minimum of fuss and noise. The time was coming.

_The hunter growled and shrieked rage at its aggressors. The fire burned it, weakening its left side and slowing its movement. _

_Another human got to close and it promptly ended the knife-wielding mans life with a back-swipe of its scythes, another closing with a long knife._

_At that moment it spotted a knot of people who emerged from their hiding places together, attempting to get closer to it while under cover or something. These ones were not as brave as those that circled it, they were not the alphas, it need not fight them with any respect. A wave of spines is emitted with a slight squelch, the projectile bombardment slipping past its encircling would-be-killers and riddling more than half the group with a deadly barrage._

_More screams cut the night air as those new wounded and dying collapsed where they stood, their compatriots feebly attempting to get back into hiding. During this moment of distraction though one of the brave ones snuck close and lunged, lodging a knfe in its already wounded side. He was dealt with quickly of course but the knife was in deep and it could not reach it now as it swiped at the offending ex-knife wielder and released another barrage of spines at its foes, felling two of them._

_These humans were persistent in defending their hive, it thought. Other creatures would have fled by now, surrendering their collective dwelling place to the invaders._

_Clearly there had been some communication between the beta members of the hive, as the hunter swung again at its harassing foes, slower still as its burnt side weakened further, one of them rose up with a cry wielding a knife, many others around the square running forwards at the same time. It saw the leader, the new alpha leader. Perhaps it had killed the other alpha? This one would not last long though._

_Mid cry the man is cut off as a barrage of spines hit him with such force that his legs went from under him as his torso simply stopped moving forward, his gurgling last breath unheard amidst the other rapidly dwindling shouts. _

_With their leader's downfall the encroaching line faltered, the brave ones close by even pausing in surprise at what had just happened._

_This was enough._

_At that moment the zerglings that had been working in from the outside of the settlement poured into the square, running first towards those areas where townsfolk had taken shelter from the hunter's spine barrages._

_All the other humans turned as one towards the zergling menace and either froze in shock or charged in anger, hacking with axes, knives or crowbars._

_Just one, frozen briefly but not eliminated realised exactly what was happening and turned with a wild look in his eyes towards the hunter. He hefted a hatchet, light but sturdy, and approached with deliberate motions. This was the new alpha; this was the last alpha the hunter recognised. It did not cut him down with spines, the challenge was too blatant._

_The human swung the axe laterally, the hunter dodged its large bulk backwards, avoiding the strike as it lashed out with its uninjured scythe. The human parried, deflecting the hunters stroke and ducking under, landing a sharp blow to the under side of the healthy scythe appendage._

_The hunter backed up and the two circled as the zergling conflict raged around the edges of the square. Some of those at least the people were killing._

_The human leapt in, feinted, and swung overhand. The hunter slashed down and then up, its wounded appendages moving sluggishly before it snapped forward with its head, narrowly missing the human with a bite that would have decapitated him._

_The human snuck in close, smacked the hunter in the chest and spun, swing the hatchet over-head in a powerful arc. The hunter shoved forwards with its burnt scythe and then the axe sunk deeply into the groove where its neck connected to its body, fluid vitae squirting out aggressively._

_A cry of rage and triumph sprang from the mans mouth, one that shortly turned to a gurgle as red spittle foamed at the corners of his mouth and he looked down, down to where the burnt scythe appendage was embedded in his middle, just below the ribs._

_With a low growl the hunter withdrew its scythe and allowed the human to sink slowly to his knees. Elsewhere the zerglings nosed through the recently dead. This was over._

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_So did you like it? Please review. :-D_

___Until next time!  
_


	14. Chapter 13

_Ok, so I am having a bad case of having a life. However, here we go again. _

_I'm having a bit of a mental block on how I'm going to get from here to where I want to end up._

_**Disclaimer: No I don't own any part of StarCraft.**  
_

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**Battle on a New Front**

_**Chapter 13: What a Surprise…**_

Agent Davies was enjoying a relaxing cup of coffee after the night's complete lack of sleep when the radio call came through from the recon team reporting the nearby township to be deserted. Blinking he didn't even get a chance to react before the ghost, unexpectedly –there– was responding to it with a series of apparently coded instructions.

After a long silence another report came back. The ghost's almost mechanical voice issued an affirmative order before turning to Davies, a badge and warrant somehow in hand when before it had not been. "Agent Davies, you are hereby relieved of your command in this operation, your role here is now that of a civilian observer and advisor. Please remove yourself from the command tent."

Flabbergasted it took until the ghost raised its hand and pointed to the exit for his limbs to respond to his orders and move himself off the chair. Just prior to exiting the ghost spoke again, "Stop." The cool emotionless mask of dark glass swivelled to face him, "You are now assigned to observe and advise alpha team. You know where they are."

Consciously picking his jaw back up off the ground he stepped outside, the tent flap falling behind him with an odd finality for a door made of fabric.

At length he did indeed arrive where alpha team was located, not far really. Conveniently, or so it seemed to him, his own tent had been pitched adjacent to alpha team's set. Exhaling a short laugh he sat on one of the porta-stools and kicked a small rock at the fire, it wasn't like he hadn't expected it he supposed.

Cursing he realised he'd left his cup of coffee in the command tent but as soon as he stood up he realised it would be pointless to go back, it'd be cold by now anyway. Casting around for something to do he was caught in inactivity by one of the alpha's returning from perimeter watch.

"Commander? What are you doing standing around our tents and dragging your feet like a wet week?"

Davies just shrugged, he could hear the other alpha's coming up the short path through their encampment, "Reaper has relieved me of my duties. Apparently some report troubled him too much to leave me where I was."

The alpha just laughed, "Well that'd be right, there goes a weeks wage. Freaker got to you early."

At the confused look on Davies' face he explains, "Freaker's what we call ole' Reaper there, and a lot of the marines and I were placing bets on how long it'd be till he took over. I'd bet you'd last till lunchtime today."

The other five members of alpha team arrived with a chorus of whoops or groans, probably based on how much they'd won or lost on the bet. They introduced themselves, though they all had their names printed on their suits anyway.

They'd all just sat down when a voice came through on the loudspeaker, "All units this is Reaper, suit up for combat readiness. We're moving out in twenty minutes."

Davies remembered the lightweight combat suit he had been sent with in his tent and went to get it, though not before a marine shoved a semi-automatic weapon of some kind into his hands.

_And miles away underground, someone woke up… to a smile._

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_So, review, suggest, etc.__ :D_


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